


Our New Normal

by Bre



Series: The Afterworld [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Fix-it, Established Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Married Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, POV Felicity Smoak, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series 08, Season/Series 08, Sex, Smut, Spectre Oliver, Spectre!Oliver, Spoilers, Spolicity, Spolicity Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:54:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bre/pseuds/Bre
Summary: Post-8x10. Oliver and Felicity have a lot to talk about after she joins him.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: The Afterworld [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692280
Comments: 104
Kudos: 410





	Our New Normal

**Author's Note:**

> It’s no secret that I really loved the last scene of the finale. I also really wish Season 8 had never happened, for a number of reasons, but also because I don’t think this is how Arrow should have ended. But in the context of the Crisis and everything that S8 gave us? God yes, I loved that we got Olicity together in the end! But, of course, I had questions, and I wanted to understand things. So I babbled out a bunch of stuff. I started this after the finale and it’s slowly morphed into this. I wanted to capture as much as I could that encapsulates how I see Olicity wherever they are now. I have admittedly not looked too much into the lore or the comic books, so...
> 
> So this is my headcanon now!
> 
> (This was un-beta’d and I’ve been sick, so all mistakes are definitely mine.)

The glowing numbers disappeared as she slowly pushed the laptop shut.

Felicity took a deep breath and dropped her head on her crossed arms. Her glasses jabbed her in the nose. Scrunching up her face, she threw them away to land on the pillow she’d woken up on just a moment ago. The very nice pillow in the old Italian villa that she and Oliver had stayed at all those years ago. Except this wasn’t actually Italy. Not _that_ Italy, at least. It had everything their Italy had on Earth 1. Or rather, Earth Prime. Whatever.

Chest tight, Felicity settled on her arms again and closed her eyes. 

They immediately flipped back open and latched onto the half-closed laptop.

She could still see the ghostly glimmers of Smoak Technologies’ numbers running across the screen that had just been on an announcement in the Gazette of a wedding engagement.

One good thing about your husband housing a supernatural entity with nearly god-like powers? He had access to computers that let her keep track of things in the world she came from, no matter where they were. Even in a realm that didn’t technically exist… or that existed outside of the multiverse as newly created… or was a bubble outside the… bigger bubble, or… 

Felicity sighed into her arms.

They had talked about it at length. She’d asked a thousand and eleven questions and he answered them all as much as he could. But long story short? He was immortal and he policed the new cosmos that he’d basically rebirthed. Oh, and when the Monitor opened the door for her back to her husband, she’d bounced back to the age she’d been when the Monitor had first come for Oliver. And double oh, she was in a sort of… _pause_. More like Oliver had hit the pause button. She wouldn’t age like she had, because here, in this world, time didn’t exist like that.

Which meant they would, in theory, outlive their children.

The gaping hole that ripped into the center of Felicity’s chest took her breath away.

A warm, callused hand on the small of her bare back pulled her out of her morbid thoughts. 

The mattress next to her feet dipped, and then by her hip, and then a heavy, familiar weight fell onto the bed next to her. That very specific, very well-known earthy scent that was all her husband filled her nose. She breathed him in as he smoothed his hand up her spine. A wave of goosebumps erupted under his touch followed by a shiver she felt in her toes.

Felicity turned to face him.

“Hey,” her husband said, his voice soft and gentle, and that beautiful smile… 

Her heart jumped at the sight as her own lips curled up in response. 

It was as natural as breathing, just like Before. Except now it was a little more insistent. A little more desperate, even. As if she were preparing. As if it might be the last time. Which was ridiculous. She knew that. She was here, with him, and she was staying with him. Forever. But she still wasn’t used to it. When someone spent _twenty years_ missing another person? Twenty years of learning to live without them, of trying to move on out of necessity, of being terrified to let go of that love because the thought of it fading away was worse than death? Well, it made remembering that this new reality of hers was actually happening a little difficult.

Until she looked at him.

And just like that, all the tension melted from her muscles and she relaxed into the bedspread. 

His hand paused, his smile faltering the tiniest bit. 

Oliver’s eyes lit on the laptop behind her.

She stiffened before she could stop herself.

“Just trying to reach my daily stalking quota,” Felicity said. His eyes found hers again and she plastered on a grin. “Is breakfast ready? Guess I should find a shirt. Although let me tell you, I’m getting way more used to seeing all this young skin I definitely did not appreciate enough when I had it. I should’ve walked around like this way more often. That makes it sound like I’m going downstairs shirtless, which I’m not. Although I could. It’s not like anyone’s here to stop me. But then I don’t think much eating would get done. Well, not the food kind of eating. Although if you lose your shirt, too, I know those abs of yours would make an excellent plate. Lots of experience with that. And whipped cream. All over. All… over.”

And she was babbling.

Years ago, she would have thrown out a joke to cover any accidental faux pas. But that was then.

“Which we should do,” Felicity added. “Like, right now. I’ll make you a whipped cream shirt.”

Oliver laughed, and her next smile was real. Her babbling had come back hard and fast in the last few weeks. It was refreshing and a little startling considering the somber brain-to-mouth filter she’d gained after his funeral had never gone away. 

But that it still made him smile like that? It could stay lost forever.

“I am definitely a fan of losing our shirts.” But he didn’t move to take his off, or kiss her, or roll her onto her back and ravage her like he’d taken to doing since she’d arrived. Instead Oliver sighed and smoothed his hand over her back again. Felicity watched his gaze drift to where he touched her. He dragged his fingertips in slow circles, over her shoulder blades, and then up the back of her neck into her hair. He ran his fingers through the long strands, quiet wonder covered his features as he pushed a loose tendril from her face. “But there isn’t any food. Yet. I didn’t make breakfast.”

The shift in the air was tangible.

Felicity couldn’t stop herself from stiffening again. “Then what’ve you been doing?” 

“You asked me,” he said, still watching his hand play with her hair, “how I did it for so many years. Watching over you, over William and Mia, and nothing else. How I could stand being so close, but… not there. With you. With them.” His voice cracked. “I could have. I could have been there with you, Felicity, even if it wasn’t always, I could have. But I didn’t.”

A tremulous breath escaped her on a quiet, “Why?”

“Because I wanted _this_ ,” Oliver admitted in a tiny voice. “I wanted you, here, with me. I knew what you were going to do, that the Monitor was going to bring you here, to me, because I created the pathway for him to do it. But it had to be just right. It had be the right time. Time is… if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that time is fickle. One little change has ripple effects that are felt throughout the entire multiverse. And I knew, if I went to you, that it would be different. Your choice would be different. Whether it was timing, or the way it happened, or how the kids turned out. God, that was the hardest one. Their future is so _necessary_ , in so many ways, and if anything had changed for them because I was there, I couldn’t risk that.

“But that wasn’t why I did it. I wish it was, but… it wasn’t.”

“Oliver…” Felicity whispered, heart in her throat.

“I gave up so much,” he continued, finally looked back at her. He cupped her face, his fingers digging in as a tear fell down his face. “You. Our son. Our daughter. My _life_. And I know it was the right thing to do, I know that now as much as I did then. But then it was all over, and suddenly all I had was all of this before me. All this work, this balance I had to maintain, all this _time_ … And all I wanted was to be selfish. For once, I wanted to have the one thing I needed more than anything else in the entire multiverse.”

He didn’t have to say it. She saw it in his eyes.

“That’s why I never came to you,” Oliver told her. “Because I needed _you_. The Spectre can do so much, but I can’t erase choices, I can’t change the consequences of choices people make. And the last thing I wanted to do was jeopardize you coming here. I wanted to be selfish. I _am_ selfish. Because I wanted you here, Felicity. I _needed_ you here. With me. Like this.”

Felicity bit her lip so hard she nearly drew blood. 

Tears flooded her eyes and she blinked them away as she tried to breathe through a suddenly suffocating pressure in her chest. 

She had assumed as much, when she first asked him, when he had dodged the question with a non-answer. He _could_ have been there. He could have been there with her, with the kids, building a life together instead of the shattered pieces she’d been left with. They could have been together all those years, those achingly lonely, empty years. Even if he’d only been there sporadically, it would have been better than nothing.

Right? 

_No_.

A burst of air rocketed out of her lungs at that, and the pressure evaporated. Ask her twenty years ago - even ten years ago - and her answer would have been very different. 

But now? 

She wouldn’t trade those years for anything, she realized, because they had shaped all of them.

It was the struggle - the work, the hardships, the wins, the losses - that made her see what he was saying. It was the joy that came of it, the steel, the glue that kept her family together, that let them thrive the way they did. It would have been so different, if he had been there. It would have changed things, irrevocably, because that’s what love did. That’s what _their_ love did. Did she wish he had been there still? Absolutely. The thought alone made her want to cry with the strength of the yearning that filled her. But could she blame him? Part of her wanted to, still, because it felt like a choice she should have been involved in. Except she couldn’t have been. Because it was bigger than her, than them, all of it - the death of her husband, the opening for the Spectre, the only being strong enough to end the darkness, the only way to reconstruct what had been destroyed. But not their love. The circumstances were bigger than all of them, yes, but not their love. Nothing could destroy that. Nothing was bigger than that, and the proof was right here, wasn’t it? That she was here, with him, in a pocket of time created and maintained solely by him, so they could be together the way they had always wanted. The way they _deserved_.

It could have been different. They deserve to have that happy ending, the white picket fence, the two point five kids, the dog… 

But this was their reality. This was the next best thing. And she couldn’t be angry about it.

Not when she faced an eternity with the love of her life by her side.

Oliver huffed out a low, self-deprecating laugh. “But even then, I couldn’t help myself.” 

Felicity frowned, not following. 

He stared at her for a beat. “We haven’t talked about any dreams you might’ve had during those years.”

“Dreams?” she asked. “You mean, of you? Of course I dreamed about you. You were always on my mind, you were never… Wait. Are you saying…?” 

Vivid pictures filled her mind, so clear and crisp and intense that she always woke up positive it had happened. At first, it had been more than she could bear. She had even resented them for a while, wished they would stop, but then she would close her eyes and her first wish was to see him. And she did. Entire conversations, laughter, tears, words of love, affirmations, sometimes anger and frustration, throwing things and raging, and other times… his touch, all over her, inside her… 

A fresh burst of tears blurred her vision as she pushed up onto her elbows.

“That was you?” Felicity demanded. “Those were real? They were… you were…?”

“It was the closest I could get to you, to William, to Mia, without really being there,” Oliver admitted. Agony twisted his face as his hand dropped from her face. “I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t stand spending that much time away from you, from my family. And you were always open to me, as if you somehow knew-”

“I did.” Felicity grabbed his hand. “I was open to you. Always. God, Oliver, you have no idea what this means. Those _sustained_ me. I was able to talk to you when I needed you most, I was connected to you when I needed to be, I thought… I thought I was losing my mind honestly, but they kept me going, as if they were… as if it was somehow you, and it _was_. Oh god, you were there, you saw Mia’s first steps, you saw William’s awards, you saw… Oh, that car accident, and when Mia broke her arm, and the fights she got into, and when William’s grandparents died, and work, and JJ, and Connor, god, Connor and everything he went through with John and Lyla, and… Oh, those dates? You… you were so… Oliver, for a few minutes, I felt like I had you back. I had the father of my children back, my partner, my _husband_.”

“I was with you,” Oliver promised, another tear falling as he squeezed her hand. “The entire time.”

Felicity surged forward, her lips finding his in a graceless kiss. His free hand cupped the back of her head and pulled her closer, holding her there for a long moment.

“And the kids?” Felicity asked, pulling back to look at him.

“Yeah.” Oliver took a shaky breath and nodded, his tears making his eyes luminescent. “It wasn’t as much with them, because I… I wanted to protect them from thinking anything weird was going on. Which it was. And I should have done that with you, but with you, I wasn’t as strong. It was more… memories, with them. They’d revisit something they did that day, or the week before, and I would get to be there. Like… graduations, or plays, or sleepovers. Sometimes they were things I didn’t want to see-” Felicity laughed. “But most of the time, I was able to be present for things that I wouldn’t have been otherwise. And you were there most of the time.” Oliver brushed her hair behind her ear. “It wasn’t the same. I know it would never be the same, but for a second I was with my kids. I was able to be with them the only way I could be.”

Felicity didn’t try to hide the sobs that wrenched out of her. Oliver gathered her close, kissing her, their tears combining. 

“There were some mornings where they came downstairs,” Felicity whispered. “And I could see it in their faces. Mia talked about it more than William at first, but you were always there with us. Always. And they knew about it all. About everything, I didn’t keep any of it from them. They knew who you were, before the Crisis, and during.”

“Thank you,” he breathed.

“And I… I knew I was going to see Mia,” she continued. “As a grownup, when she was still a baby, and I knew that was coming for her. That she would be coming to your funeral. And that she would meet you again.”

“That made it easier,” Oliver confided, emotion choking his voice. “There was another future that had happened, before the Crisis, and their lives… your life… they were so _hard_ , and I hated it, but it made them into the most amazing people. And I got to meet them. I got to talk to them, and hear their stories, and live with them, even if it was just for a moment. They were the most amazing people I’d ever met, and I knew so much of that had to do with you. You raised them into beautiful, strong people, and that… It made it easier, staying away. Knowing that that would happen because of you. Although I had no doubt from the beginning.”

Felicity smiled. 

Or, she tried. 

When it came down to it, she had still done it alone. She’d had help, of course, and it was nice knowing he’d been there, in some way, but it wasn’t what it could have been. And for a second, she mourned that with every atom in her body.

She ducked her head and burrowed into his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder. He was so warm, so alive, his heat seeping through his t-shirt into her bare skin, his arms warm around her.

Oliver pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Felicity.”

“I know,” she whispered. Her voice hitched on a sob. “I know.”

They held each other. The silence settled around them, and tension she didn’t realize had snuck back into both of them slowly slid away. Sounds of an active world outside their room filled the air - cars, birds, people talking in the distance, the pool just outside their window lapping against rock edges, the wind blowing. The comforting noises cleared away the heaviness.

She wasn’t sure who moved first, but somehow their hands wound up tangled tightly together on his sternum.

“I wanted to be here with you, too,” Felicity said after a moment. “You know that, right? I _needed_ to be with you. It was all I worked towards. It was the one thing that got me up the most. I knew when they would be okay without me, and that when they were set up and happy and safe, that I could finally find you. And I don’t regret that. It hurts knowing what could have been, but I don’t regret it. Because I have you.” His arm around her back hugged her tighter. “And Mia and William, they were with me in this, every step of the way. I didn’t hide it from them, and I wouldn’t have called the Monitor when I did if they had asked me not to. But they didn’t. Because they knew as much as I did how much of myself was missing because I didn’t have you. So no, being here now, with you, like this, I don’t regret it, Oliver.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “I don’t regret it.”

A flitting wave of relief crossed his face.

“I don’t,” she reiterated and pushed up so her lips brushed his in a kiss. “You are my everything.” 

“And you’re mine,” he replied on a crack before pressing his lips more firmly to hers.

They settled in again. The shared silence a warm cocoon folding them in together. 

It was almost perfect… 

“But you miss them,” Oliver offered.

“Oh god, I _do_ ,” Felicity said. She sat up to see him more fully. “I knew I would, too, that I would miss them so much, and I made peace with that. I did. And with them. But talking about being away from them is one thing. Actually being away from them? And then there’s…”

“What?” he asked, smoothing his hand up to the back of her neck. “Talk to me, Felicity.”

“I know I won’t age here.” Felicity studied his eyes, and saw the instant he got what she was saying. 

“But they will.”

That searing pain speared through her chest again as Felicity nodded. “Yeah.”

Oliver opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He stared at her, and she saw all of her own heartbreak and grief mirrored back at her, and she knew he’d thought about it, too. But there wasn’t an easy answer. There wasn’t even really an answer that he could give her that would any of it better. Because there was no making this better. 

“I was checking in on them.”

Felicity’s heart stopped. “What?”

“When I went downstairs to make breakfast,” Oliver filled in. “I know it’s been bothering you, I know you’ve been keeping tabs on them, and I knew… Well, I hadn’t visited Earth Prime. And I knew I could, but I wanted to be absolutely, one hundred positive that I could before I told you that-”

“What are you saying?” Felicity asked, shooting up taller.

“I’m saying we should go visit our kids.”

“What? We can do that? We… can go home?” A sob cracked her voice. “I get to see my babies?”

“Yes,” Oliver whispered, tears filling his eyes. 

“Oh my god,” Felicity gasped, throwing herself at him. A laugh fell out of her as she wrapped her arms around him. “Oh my god!”

His laughter joined hers as he hugged her back. 

“How?” Felicity asked, pulling back. “Alright, I mean, I do get how, but-”

“Honestly, I’d thought about it long before you found me,” he said. “About how to bridge things back to the kids, how to bridge our world the way we knew it with what we have now. I can do so much, and I want to give you everything, Felicity. I want to give us everything that I can. And then you were here.” Oliver grinned, but there was a sadness that made her heart hurt. “And I had you in my arms again, and it was everything I’d wanted. I thought about bringing it up, so many times. I waited for you to bring it up, but you didn’t, and I… It just… I was scared. I couldn’t stop thinking about what they would think of me, now, about how everything happened, about the last twenty years-”

“They love you, Oliver,” Felicity told him. “They know who you are, they know everything.”

“I’m still terrified,” he admitted on a rattly laugh.

Felicity cupped his cheek and ran her thumb under his eye. “That’s what makes you human.”

“Even though I’m not technically human anymore?” he replied, and a hint of ethereal green shaded his eyes. “I’m not even technically alive anymore, Felicity. Not like I used to be. The Spectre can’t exist in a living person. That’s part of what ties us together. I don’t actually even know exactly what I am.”

His eyes dropped. “Does that… does that scare you?”

“No,” she said honestly. “Because you’re still Oliver. Because I was with you every step of the way, remember? When you came back from Lian Yu, everything you went through as the Arrow, as Oliver Queen, as a husband, as a father - I was with you. And I know that man can more than handle this. These last few weeks, ever since I got here, things have been so… normal. But I know things aren’t normal anymore. Not like they used to be.”

“No,” Oliver agreed. “I’m not just Oliver Queen anymore. I had the chance to come back, but when I chose to be the Spectre, I became something else entirely. And as the Spectre, I have a lot more to do, to keep the balance, in the multiverse. It’s funny, all those years ago, when I thought I couldn’t be the Arrow and Oliver Queen… It was you that helped me realize I can. That I can be both and so much more. None of this would have been possible without you. All those years, the years you helped me find myself, find my light, my balance, it was all leading up to this moment. I’m Oliver Queen…” His eyes grew bright green, so bright they glowed. “And the Spectre.”

Felicity stared into the glowing orbs. 

His reticence was another presence in the room, and she knew he was bearing it all to her, showing her everything. There _was_ more there now, an otherworldly presence, but it wasn’t separate. Because as much as she sensed the power in him that hadn’t been there before, it was still all her Oliver.

“Our new normal,” she said.

“Yeah,” Oliver whispered on a relieved grin.

Staring into his green eyes, Felicity kissed him. She kissed her husband, kissed the Arrow, the Green Arrow, her partner, the father of her children… the Spectre.

New normal was a bit of an understatement, but at the same time, it was exactly right.

When he tried to deepen it, she pulled back.

“So hang on,” she said. “Those dreams, the stuff you told me, was all that real, too? Like an earth made up entirely of shrimp, and when you tried to describe what it was like seeing colors you didn’t know existed-”

“Some of that.” Oliver cracked an amused smile. “I can’t say I’ve run into a planet made up entirely of shrimp yet.”

Her cheeks warmed. “Okay, so that was an actual dream, then. Got it.”

Oliver chuckled. “But the other stuff? It was all true. And I’d like to show you all of it.”

“Really? We can do that? I don’t have to have some special goddess status-”

“You’re already a goddess in my eyes,” Oliver interrupted and she rolled her eyes at him, earning another chuckle. “But no, you don’t need a special status.” He laced his fingers through hers again and lifted them as Felicity settled back against his shoulder. He pressed his face to her temple, and she felt his lips moving as he spoke. “The Spectre and I are like this, entwined together. But so are you and I. You are just as much a part of me as the Spectre, which means where I go, you go.”

“That… will be so frakking amazing,” Felicity said with a laugh.

Oliver kissed her temple. “Not as amazing as you,” he said. He rolled her onto her back and climbed on top of her. Felicity opened for him and hummed at the sensation of his full weight against her as he settled between her thighs. He cupped her face. “Nothing is as amazing as you are, Felicity.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, there is an _entire multiverse_ out there-”

“Nothing,” he reiterated before his lips slanted over hers.

She moaned. “Okay, but you’re talking about me seeing the actual freaking universe-”

“ _Felicity_.”

“I’m just saying, there has to be some sort of-”

He cut her off again, and this time he took advantage of the opening to thrust his tongue against hers. There were more words in her brain, but they disappeared as he kissed her. He pressed her further into the mattress and she pulled her legs up higher. He groaned his approval as he settled more fully against her center, his sweats and the thin sleep shorts she had on the only thing separating her from his growing hardness. 

Dragging his lips from hers, Oliver kissed his way down her chin, following the line of her jaw to the delicate spot that always made her gasp before he eased down her neck. Stubble scraping as he went, his t-shirt soft against her bare skin as he moved, Felicity’s hands landed on his shoulders, her nails digging into hard muscle. He licked and sucked and nipped and she fought to keep breathing, pushing one hand into hair that was thankfully growing back, the other sprawling over his upper back. He still had his scars, all of them, and they greeted her even through his shirt in such a familiar way that it brought tears to her eyes.

“Oliver,” she whispered as he moved down to her clavicle, her chest, her breasts. “ _Oliver_.”

“I’m here,” he replied just as his lips found one of her nipples. 

The pleasure was immediate and a strangled whimper escaped her, a shudder wracking every inch of her, her back arching to get closer. He flicked at her with his tongue, sucking before grazing the tiny bead with his teeth. Heat spiraled out from that spot, searing, coursing through her right to her core. Felicity gripped his hair tight, holding him closer, her legs wrapping around him as she thrust her hips up into his. The friction was perfect and she cried out, doing it again, earning a deep growl from him. He rotated his hips, sucking harder, pinning her down… 

It was exquisite torture, and any other time she would have enjoyed the ride, but on the heels of everything they’d finally admitted to each other, it was suddenly not enough.

“I need you,” Felicity rasped. She pulled at his hair, tugging him away, and he let her nipple go with a wet pop. His lips were as red and swollen as her abused breast, his cheeks flush with arousal, his eyes glassy with need, and it was the most erotic sight she’d ever seen. Felicity grabbed his face and urged him back up to her. “I need you inside him,” she told him just before her lips crashed into his.

Hard and demanding, they kissed each other as if it was their first and last time combined in one. It was inevitable, though, in a way, the desperation that captured them, that controlled them, after everything they had been through. 

After everything they had found again.

Oliver pulled back, quick and harried, and he clambered off her, nearly falling when he abruptly found the edge of the bed. Felicity followed him, scooting to the edge, her hands shoving his shirt up as he pushed his sweats down his hips. His hardness popped free, swelling even more where it bobbed between them. She abandoned his shirt and wrapped her hand around him. She didn’t waste a second before leaning forward and wrapping her mouth around his thick head, running her tongue along the slit. A salty droplet greeted her and she moaned, sucking, wanting more as she started pumping him, gripping him tight, his hot skin moving against the thick steel of his need for her. He panted out a tight curse, and then the air above her was moving where he tore his shirt off. She didn’t let him go, her want for this man so intense she felt it in her bones, taking over, controlling her, making her mindless.

He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back, forcing her to let him go. She didn’t get the chance to react before he gripped her waist and tossed her back onto the center of the bed. Felicity bounced, a giggle escaping her, and she caught sight of his grin but then he was gone, his fingers finding the hem of her shorts. He tugged them down, tossed them away, and then he climbing onto the bed again.

“Come here,” Felicity whispered, opening her arms, but he stopped at her thighs.

Oliver smoothed his hands from her knees up. She whined his name, spreading her legs, reaching down to grab him, but he evaded her. The look on his face - the hunger, the need, the want, the love - it had her inner walls already spasming and she arched her hips to get closer to him. 

“Oliver, _please_.”

“You are so beautiful,” he replied, his hands finding her inner thighs, moving up. His lips followed his hands’ path, so soft compared to his calloused palms. Her head fell back on the bed with a bounce, her breaths sawing in and out, sensation swamping her. “So beautiful,” he told her again. His hot breath danced over her delicate, trembling skin, sending waves of goosebumps spiraling out. “Beautiful.”

His mouth found her weeping sex.

A cry wrenched out from deep inside her and Felicity’s back bowed again, her leg kicking out. He slid his hands under and around and clamped her hips down, holding her still as he took his fill of her. His tongue stroked against her clit, his lips wrapping around it and sucking, his head moving, his mouth opening wider so he could lick down to her opening where he thrust his tongue inside her. Heat was a living thing under her skin, churning, bright and hot, the pleasure he gave her taking her breath away as he worked her. Felicity grappled against the sheets, twisting them in tight fists, thrusting up, her whimpers and pleas filling the room, the sucking noises and his moans sending her higher.

But it wasn’t _enough_.

“ _Oliver_ …”

Like he knew, like he could read her thoughts, like he was of the same mind as her, Oliver pulled back and climbed up the rest of the way. His face was wet from her, and he left a trail of arousal as he kissed and sucked his way up her abdomen, up the slope of her neglected breast, her nipple, her chest… 

Felicity nodded when he finally reached her, when he finally settled the full length of his hard body against her soft one, when she spread her legs for him. His chin was still wet when he kissed her, and she moaned at the taste of herself on his tongue. Felicity wrapped him up in her arms, pulling her legs up as high as she could. His hard length slid across her tender, wet core and their combined moans was music to her ears.

“Yes,” she breathed against his lips as he pulled his hips back, his thick head finding her entrance. His kisses drifted down her cheek and she kissed his stubble, his jaw, his ear, the line of his hair as he buried his face in her throat. “Oliver…”

He thrust home.

Felicity’s mouth fell open in a soundless cry as he filled her, going so deep, stretching her completely. He fit inside her perfectly, like he was made for her, and she held on as he found one of her knees and lifted her leg up, letting him slide in even deeper. It was so good, so, so good, almost too good to be true…

“Is this real?” she choked out. 

Oliver froze and pulled back to look at her. 

A sudden sheen of tears blurred her vision and she blinked rapidly, needing to see him. He stared at her, his brow furrowed, his breaths ragged, but he didn’t move. She cupped his face, drinking him in, every little tiny thing. “This isn’t a dream, right? You’re really here. I’m here? This is…?”

Anguish twisted his brow.

“It’s real,” Oliver told her, staring into her. “This is real, Felicity, I promise.”

“You’re here?” she said, smoothing her hands over his face, down his neck, and to his shoulders.

“I’m here,” he whispered. He shifted, readjusting, and slipped his arm underneath her and across her back to grab her shoulder. Hugging her. It anchored her to him, so securely it made her chest ache. His other hand found hers. He laced their fingers together, tight and sure, and tugged them close between them, until they were completely wrapped up in each other. “ _You’re_ here,” Oliver said. “This is real. This is real.”

Felicity nodded.

“It’s real.”

He kissed her, and she knew he was telling the truth. She was here, with her love, and they were never going to be apart again.

Oliver slowly started moving. He pulled out the tiniest bit before thrusting back inside her. She moved her legs, winding one around his backside, the other slipping down to wrap around his leg. He lifted his other one for more leverage as he filled her, over and over and over… 

They made love to each other, every move achingly tender, every touch reassuring. His hand gripped her shoulder, strong and sure, their laced hands never letting the other go, not for anything. When Oliver pulled back to look at her, their eyes meeting as they rocked together, she cupped his cheek, grounding herself to him even more. 

Her pleasure built on a silent crest, slow and meticulous, coiling inside her in a crescendo that radiated through every inch of her.

“Oliver,” she breathed, and he nodded, pressing his forehead to hers. Felicity gripped his hand in hers, her other grabbing the back of his neck for something to hold onto. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed his air, taking him inside her in every way possible. “ _Oliver_.”

“I’ve got you, Felicity,” he promised and her eyes flew open to find his already on her. Her pleasure peaked in a sudden swell. She gasped, stiffening, clinging to him, to his gaze. “I’ve got you.”

Felicity came apart in his arms. Fire licked through her veins, but not with the alacrity it usually did. It was slower, hotter, igniting every single nerve in her body. Her eyes slammed shut, her back bowing, her toes curling, pinpricks dancing under her skin in a swath of heat. It consumed her, and it didn’t stop, not as he kept moving, thrusting, filling her, over and over in a primordial dance that echoed in her soul. 

Oliver fell against her. 

Their tangled hands stayed lodged between them as he buried his face in her neck and doubled his efforts, hips moving faster, their skin colliding, his hold on her tightening.

When tiny, desperate sounds echoed against her throat, his breaths hot and wet, his lips and stubble scraping over her, sending erotic shivers through her that echoed the cascade of pleasure, she opened her eyes…

“Oh god,” Felicity breathed.

The ceiling of the villa was gone, but there wasn’t any sky, not like she knew. 

A fresh wave of sensation crashed into her and she cried out as the multiverse above them glowed bright. Colors and swirls and stars and planets glowed against a black background that was as alive as the universes it cradled in its dark palm. The beauty of it was astonishing, mind-bending, filling her with awe as much as…

“ _Felicity_ ,” Oliver moaned, and on one final thrust, he came deep inside her.

She _felt_ it, felt him, felt his pleasure as much as hers, and another orgasm hit her.

They fell together, holding on to each other, coming together in more ways than one.

It was a long while before Felicity opened her eyes again, and it was only because Oliver moved to slowly ease out of her. 

“Oh,” she whimpered and she turned to follow him as he fell onto the bed next to her. He pulled her close, cradling her in the security of his arms, pressing a chaste kiss to her sweaty forehead. Felicity sighed, lifting her leg to wrap around his hip, tangling their legs together. “I love you.”

“I love you,” ghosted across her hair as he readjusted, fitting her into the cradle of his shoulder and pushing his face against the top of her head. She hummed her approval, dropping messy kisses against his broad chest. His hand got tangled in her damp hair, his other skating down her ribs.

“Oliver?”

“Hmm?”

“I think I saw it,” Felicity whispered. She felt him frown in question and she pulled back to look up at him. “The multiverse.” Surprise twisted his face. “I mean, I think I did. This isn’t a play on how absolutely incredible those orgasms were, because they really, really were, and all the kudos to us for the amazing sex we just had, but… When you said my name, the ceiling… disappeared, and I saw… I swear I saw it. And then I also felt… At least I think I did… I felt _you_. Felt what you felt. Do I sound as insane as I think I do?”

“No,” Oliver said after a moment, his brow furrowing on a thought. “It actually makes sense.”

“Well, that’s comforting, and it also explains nothing.”

“When I’m with you,” Oliver said, staring into her eyes, “you’re all that exists for me. You are my universe as far as I’m concerned, and I think… I don’t have to concentrate to keep this place where we are going, it exists because I say it does, and it exists exactly like the world we used to live in, but I think I… blurred the lines a little bit? I let go… into you. What I was feeling. What I see when I close my eyes.”

“Wow.”

“Is that… okay?” He frowned. “I can try to pull it back-”

“No,” Felicity said loudly. “Don’t you dare. I want you letting go with me. I’m so glad I can give that to you. That I can still give that to you. That was… There aren’t words. I felt more connected to you, to the entire universe, in a way I never have before.”

“I felt that, too,” he replied softly, moving his fingers through her hair. “I felt you, with me.”

“Wow.”

Oliver smiled. “That’s why I know I’ll be able to take you with me when I have work to do. Which yes,” he added off her look, “definitely includes seeing the kids.”

“I still can’t believe that’s possible,” Felicity admitted, her hand drifting up to his chin, his jaw, wonder filling her voice. “I never dreamed that that would be something we’d get to do. That it was even possible. I should probably stop wondering about things being possible, shouldn’t I?”

“At this point?” he asked, that green shading his eyes again. “Probably.”

“So when can we go?”

Oliver grinned. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Emotion filled her chest to the brim. “I’m ready. With you by my side, I’m ready for anything. For all of it.”

“Me too.”

They kissed, a soft, loving touch that sealed that promise.

A quick shower later - and by quick, she meant one of the perks of having a god-like husband was the hot water never ran out and when she complained about pruny fingers, he made them disappear which meant they spent a wonderfully right amount of time having shower sex - they stood together in the villa bedroom.

“Hold on like this.” Oliver laced their fingers together. “Hold on to me tight.”

Felicity grinned. “You know, these might be the very platonic circumstances I was talking about all those years ago.”

He chuckled, and pulled her in close, not even needing a second to remember what she was referring to. Her heart soared as Oliver kissed her, lingering, and it went even higher when he whispered, “And we’ll explore those different circumstances a little bit more later.”

“Good thing we have all the time in the world,” Felicity replied.

He grinned, kissed her once more, and on a, “Here we go,” the world around them shifted…

And when Felicity opened her eyes, they were in a large open room. Against one window was the large face of a clock, and even though it looked wildly different from the last time she’d been in there, she knew they were in the clocktower in Star City.

Movement had both her and Oliver turning around.

What she saw had tears filling her eyes, joy filling her heart, and gratitude and love squeezing Oliver’s hand.

Mia and William sat at a bar against the opposite wall, and they both looked up at the same time. William’s face was drawn, circles under his eyes, and he looked haggard, but he was his same vibrant self, thanks in part to the obvious connection between the siblings, to Mia where she held his hand, so full of light and life.

Her babies.

“Mom…?”

“Dad?”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that wasn't _too_ mean of a place to end it! I [tweeted this](https://twitter.com/dust2dust34/status/1222395200594534400) after the finale and I wanted part of this to be a lead-up to a situation where it happens.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it - reviews feed the soul and muse.
> 
> [Original Tumblr Post](https://dust2dust34.tumblr.com/post/190598835289/our-new-normal-olicity-post-8x10-explicit)


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